IBM and the Reinvention of High School (A): Proving the P-TECH Concept

Rosabeth Moss Kanter; Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2013 (Revised June 2017)

IBM and the Reinvention of High School (A): Proving the P-TECH Concept

by Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Abstract

IBM's Corporate Citizenship office created a social and organizational innovation in public education through a business-school partnership. IBM's Stanley Litow was the key architect in designing Pathways in Technology Early College High School, known as P-TECH. The open enrollment high school located in New York City's Brooklyn was launched in 2011 through a joint partnership between IBM, City University of New York (CUNY), and the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). The innovative design incorporated Career and Technical Education (CTE), STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), and early college. Students could graduate with an associate's degree (essentially two free years of college) and be "first in line" for jobs at IBM. The school was already seeing remarkable results; one third of the inaugural class entered P-TECH below grade level and nearly all students were promoted to the 10th grade and more than half of them took college courses before the end of their sophomore year. This case explores the motivation behind P-TECH (a growing skills gap), how it was developed along with the challenges, and the attention generated by the unique school design.

Keywords: leadership; education; innovation; partnerships; Leadership; Partners and Partnerships; Education; Business and Community Relations; Change; Innovation and Invention; Education Industry;

Language: English

Format: Print

21 pages

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Citation:

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone. "IBM and the Reinvention of High School (A): Proving the P-TECH Concept." Harvard Business School Case 314-049, September 2013. (Revised June 2017.)

Related Work

Supplement | HBS Case Collection | October 2013

IBM and the Reinvention of High School (A): Proving the P-TECH Concept Video Supplement

Rosabeth M. Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Video supplement includes P-TECH principal, staff, a parent, and a student.

Citation:
Kanter, Rosabeth M., and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone. "IBM and the Reinvention of High School (A): Proving the P-TECH Concept Video Supplement." Harvard Business School Video Supplement 314-702, October 2013. View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | September 2013 (Revised June 2017)

IBM and the Reinvention of High School (B): Replicating & Scaling P-TECH and Partners

Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

IBM's Corporate Citizenship office created an innovation in public education through a business-school partnership for widespread replication and diffusion. In 2012, while P-TECH (Pathways in Technology Early College High School) was still in its first year operating, Stanley Litow, IBM's Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs and President of the IBM International Foundation, found himself overwhelmed by interested parties who wanted to replicate the model. Chicago Mayor Emanuel, the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation in Idaho, the New York City Department of Education, and New York Governor Cuomo were all in various stages of implementing the concept. Chicago launched five schools in 2012 that were inspired by the P-TECH model, with IBM partnering with one school. New York City developed five more schools; two were scheduled to open in fall 2013 and three more in fall 2014. New York launched a Request for Proposal with plans to open 16 of these schools in fall 2014. Meanwhile IBM remained engaged at the federal level to help accelerate the replication through policy changes. This case explores the challenges and complications of replication.

Keywords: leadership; social enterprise; partnerships; innovation; entrepreneurship; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Partners and Partnerships; Social Entrepreneurship; Education; Business and Community Relations; Innovation and Invention; Growth Management; Chicago; Idaho;

Citation:
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone. "IBM and the Reinvention of High School (B): Replicating & Scaling P-TECH and Partners." Harvard Business School Supplement 314-050, September 2013. (Revised June 2017.) View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | October 2013

Teaching Note IBM and the Reinvention of High School (A): Proving the P-TECH Concept

Rosabeth M. Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Keywords: innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Education; Innovation and Invention; Education Industry; United States;

Citation:
Kanter, Rosabeth M., and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone. "Teaching Note IBM and the Reinvention of High School (A): Proving the P-TECH Concept." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 314-062, October 2013. View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | March 2016 (Revised June 2017)

IBM and the Reinvention of High School (C): Toward P-TECH's Rapid National Expansion

Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Kelsi Stine-Rowe

In early 2016, Stanley Litow, IBM's Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs and President of the IBM International Foundation, made his travel arrangements for still another flight from New York to discuss possibilities for application of a new model for high school called P-TECH, for Pathways in Technology Early College High School, the name of the first school in Brooklyn. In the past month alone, he had flown to Little Rock, Arkansas, to meet with Republican governor Asa Hutchinson and to Providence, Rhode Island, to meet with Democratic governor Gina Raimondo to discuss bringing a P-TECH model to their states.

Keywords: IBM; P-TECH; Stanley Litow: Robin Willner; Cuomo; Change; scaling; innovation; education; New York State; New York City; Business Model; Innovation Strategy; Innovation Leadership; Education; Business and Community Relations; Change; Growth and Development; Technology Industry;

Citation:
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, and Kelsi Stine-Rowe. "IBM and the Reinvention of High School (C): Toward P-TECH's Rapid National Expansion." Harvard Business School Supplement 316-130, March 2016. (Revised June 2017.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2013 (Revised June 2017)

IBM and the Reinvention of High School (A): Proving the P-TECH Concept

Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

IBM's Corporate Citizenship office created a social and organizational innovation in public education through a business-school partnership. IBM's Stanley Litow was the key architect in designing Pathways in Technology Early College High School, known as P-TECH. The open enrollment high school located in New York City's Brooklyn was launched in 2011 through a joint partnership between IBM, City University of New York (CUNY), and the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). The innovative design incorporated Career and Technical Education (CTE), STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), and early college. Students could graduate with an associate's degree (essentially two free years of college) and be "first in line" for jobs at IBM. The school was already seeing remarkable results; one third of the inaugural class entered P-TECH below grade level and nearly all students were promoted to the 10th grade and more than half of them took college courses before the end of their sophomore year. This case explores the motivation behind P-TECH (a growing skills gap), how it was developed along with the challenges, and the attention generated by the unique school design.

Keywords: leadership; education; innovation; partnerships; Leadership; Partners and Partnerships; Education; Business and Community Relations; Change; Innovation and Invention; Education Industry;

Citation:
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone. "IBM and the Reinvention of High School (A): Proving the P-TECH Concept." Harvard Business School Case 314-049, September 2013. (Revised June 2017.) View Details

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Gun violence was a significant problem in America. Three Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellows Christy Wood, Russell Sternlicht, and Gareth Glaser each decided to do something about gun safety. They each used their professional and leadership experience to identify their own solutions to the issue. Wood created a set of principles for investments funds to pressure gun manufacturers and gun sellers within their portfolios to adopt safety standards. Sternlicht designed a membership-based lobbying and advocacy group in order to harness the power of mass movements to create positive change. And Glaser founded a smart-gun company whose product could help reduce certain types of deaths and injuries. Would any of these three innovations move beyond the historical gridlock on gun safety?

Book | 2020

Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Over a decade ago, renowned innovation expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter co-founded and then directed Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. Her breakthrough work with hundreds of successful professionals and executives, as well as aspiring young entrepreneurs, identifies the leadership paradigm of the future: the ability to “think outside the building” to overcome establishment paralysis and produce significant innovation for a better world.
Thinking inside the building"—using the authority of position—can work in corporate settings but not when you have to work with, through, or around people with independent power bases and within challenging cultural and political situations. Kanter's insight into advanced leadership is an important and original contribution, one that transcends conventional practice.
The book illustrates how purpose-driven people united in their conviction that positive change is possible can have real impact on some of today’s biggest problems, from climate change to gun safety to inequality to racial issues. Kanter provides candid narrative accounts of their successes and near stumbles. A former Trader Joe’s executive, for example, navigated across business, government, and community sectors to deal with poor nutrition in inner cities while reducing food waste. A concerned European banker used the power of persuasion, not position, to find novel financing for improving the health of the oceans. A Washington couple enticed global partners to join an Uber-like platform to match skilled refugees with talent-hungry companies. A visionary journalist-turned-entrepreneur closed social divides by giving 50 million social media users access to free local education and culture.

Keywords: Leaders; advanced leadership; Advanced Leadership Initiative; community; change leadership; innovation; problem solving; cross-sector collaboration; institutional change; Leadership; Change; Leading Change; Communication; Innovation Leadership; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Community Relations; Civil Society or Community;

Citation:

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time. New York: PublicAffairs, 2020. View Details

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Anand Piramal and his team sought to "democratize healthcare" in India through the development of a new service delivery model. If Henry Ford could build and deliver cars to everyone in the United States, Piramal thought, then why can't India deliver healthcare to the 70% of its citizens who lack access to it? They began pilots in 2008 but soon ran into unexpected difficulties. After a second round of pilots in early 2010, they had to decide whether to proceed and if so how.

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IBM and the Reinvention of High School (A): Proving the P-TECH Concept

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